We grown-ups have a responsibility

Bruce BensonColumnist

Published: Saturday, July 13, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, July 12, 2013 at 9:58 a.m.

When I was a boy, my father, a high school principal and a big believer in strict discipline, sent me to St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, a residential school with the reputation of being the toughest boys' school in North America.

It was tough.

The school believed in four principles in educating young men: hard work, discipline, high adventure and spirituality. It was a Christian school.

I want to talk about the first two principles, hard work and discipline.

We would go on canoe trips — trips that were not meant to be fun but, as Headmaster Frank Wiens put it, "an ordeal to be overcome." And they were.

My first trip began 24 hours after I stepped on the school property. We paddled some 300 miles as an introduction to what our new life would be like. We paddled 12 hours a day, and before we camped each night several kids would be crying from the pain in their arms and shoulders.

If you stopped paddling, or refused to, you would be taken to shore, and a "master" would find a branch suitable to introduce some reinforced discipline to your hind side. It wasn't all bad, but you had to paddle, you had to pull your weight.

I have had countless difficult times in my life, but to this day that trip is my yardstick. When tough times come, and they always do, I can reflect back to it and think, "If I could do that when I was a boy, I can do this now."

Many of the things they did at the school would be considered child abuse in today's era, here in North America, but what they gave me was a gift.

"You have to get over the loathing of work," Wiens would say, "You have to get over the loathing of work until it becomes a joy to you." I learned to love it so much that, after graduating from St. John's, I went back there to teach.

The subject of hard work and discipline came up in the fish shed here in Canada. My friend Ryan and I were recounting how hard we worked to build up our fishing outfits, and the topic turned to the youths of today. Ryan was lamenting the fact that we do not make our kids work enough.

"The fat, lazy whiners will be completely useless when the screaming hordes come pouring over the Bering Strait to steal our women!" he exclaimed, which had me rolling on the floor, laughing.

But is there something to what Ryan said? Not the screaming hordes, but fat and lazy kids?

I believe there is. Childhood obesity is at record levels in North America, and more particularly the Southern United States. There were no fat kids at St. John's. They might arrive fat, but they left lean.

Kids today have it soft, and they're lazy. They are indulged.

Why, one might say, "Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." But it was already said by Socrates more than 2,000 years ago.

So if kids are fat and lazy whiners, whose fault is it?

My friend Teddy was a kid in Nazi-occupied Holland. He wanted a bicycle for his birthday and expressed his desire to his father. "We had nothing," explained Teddy's brother Gerry to me. "There was nowhere to get a bicycle. It was ridiculous."

But Teddy, like most kids, was persistent in his demands to his father, who was a baker and also a member of the underground resistance movement, with a radio for communication in the back of his shop.

"I threatened to tell the Nazis about his radio," said Teddy. "Hey, I was a kid," he added, shrugging his shoulders, "and I wanted a bike."

Teddy didn't get a bike. Instead, his father beat him half to death (the Nazis wouldn't have gone halfway had they found his father out) and then hid the radio in the bush for two weeks, just in case the kid did rat him out.

While Teddy's example is an extreme one, such is the nature of children. They will be lazy, they will whine, if left to their own devices they'll get fat, and they'll ask for and demand things. But we are the grown-ups, and it's our job to enforce discipline and hard work. In fact, our civilization depends on us doing just that.

It is not a disservice to children to make them work, and to not indulge every desire. The opposite is true.

And kids respond.

Three recent graduates of Hendersonville High have fished the entire spring season with me up here in Canada. As I write this, one is out on the lake helping his uncle pull up anchors, and the other two are working hard in the shed. I can hear the familiar noises of fish shed work being done.

I've worked them very hard all season, relentlessly, and not one has complained, whined or tried to be lazy. They are hardworking young men who have a joy of working. They got over the loathing.

The thought that I might have had something to do with that fills me with pride.

And hope.

Bruce Benson is a Canadian writer and journalist who makes Hendersonville his home. Reach him at bensonusa@ hotmail.com.

<p>When I was a boy, my father, a high school principal and a big believer in strict discipline, sent me to St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, a residential school with the reputation of being the toughest boys' school in North America.</p><p>It was tough. </p><p>The school believed in four principles in educating young men: hard work, discipline, high adventure and spirituality. It was a Christian school.</p><p>I want to talk about the first two principles, hard work and discipline.</p><p>We would go on canoe trips — trips that were not meant to be fun but, as Headmaster Frank Wiens put it, "an ordeal to be overcome." And they were.</p><p>My first trip began 24 hours after I stepped on the school property. We paddled some 300 miles as an introduction to what our new life would be like. We paddled 12 hours a day, and before we camped each night several kids would be crying from the pain in their arms and shoulders.</p><p>If you stopped paddling, or refused to, you would be taken to shore, and a "master" would find a branch suitable to introduce some reinforced discipline to your hind side. It wasn't all bad, but you had to paddle, you had to pull your weight.</p><p>I have had countless difficult times in my life, but to this day that trip is my yardstick. When tough times come, and they always do, I can reflect back to it and think, "If I could do that when I was a boy, I can do this now."</p><p>Many of the things they did at the school would be considered child abuse in today's era, here in North America, but what they gave me was a gift.</p><p>"You have to get over the loathing of work," Wiens would say, "You have to get over the loathing of work until it becomes a joy to you." I learned to love it so much that, after graduating from St. John's, I went back there to teach.</p><p>The subject of hard work and discipline came up in the fish shed here in Canada. My friend Ryan and I were recounting how hard we worked to build up our fishing outfits, and the topic turned to the youths of today. Ryan was lamenting the fact that we do not make our kids work enough.</p><p>"The fat, lazy whiners will be completely useless when the screaming hordes come pouring over the Bering Strait to steal our women!" he exclaimed, which had me rolling on the floor, laughing.</p><p>But is there something to what Ryan said? Not the screaming hordes, but fat and lazy kids?</p><p>I believe there is. Childhood obesity is at record levels in North America, and more particularly the Southern United States. There were no fat kids at St. John's. They might arrive fat, but they left lean.</p><p>Kids today have it soft, and they're lazy. They are indulged.</p><p>Why, one might say, "Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." But it was already said by Socrates more than 2,000 years ago.</p><p>So if kids are fat and lazy whiners, whose fault is it?</p><p>My friend Teddy was a kid in Nazi-occupied Holland. He wanted a bicycle for his birthday and expressed his desire to his father. "We had nothing," explained Teddy's brother Gerry to me. "There was nowhere to get a bicycle. It was ridiculous."</p><p>But Teddy, like most kids, was persistent in his demands to his father, who was a baker and also a member of the underground resistance movement, with a radio for communication in the back of his shop.</p><p>"I threatened to tell the Nazis about his radio," said Teddy. "Hey, I was a kid," he added, shrugging his shoulders, "and I wanted a bike."</p><p>Teddy didn't get a bike. Instead, his father beat him half to death (the Nazis wouldn't have gone halfway had they found his father out) and then hid the radio in the bush for two weeks, just in case the kid did rat him out.</p><p>While Teddy's example is an extreme one, such is the nature of children. They will be lazy, they will whine, if left to their own devices they'll get fat, and they'll ask for and demand things. But we are the grown-ups, and it's our job to enforce discipline and hard work. In fact, our civilization depends on us doing just that.</p><p>It is not a disservice to children to make them work, and to not indulge every desire. The opposite is true.</p><p>And kids respond.</p><p>Three recent graduates of Hendersonville High have fished the entire spring season with me up here in Canada. As I write this, one is out on the lake helping his uncle pull up anchors, and the other two are working hard in the shed. I can hear the familiar noises of fish shed work being done.</p><p>I've worked them very hard all season, relentlessly, and not one has complained, whined or tried to be lazy. They are hardworking young men who have a joy of working. They got over the loathing.</p><p>The thought that I might have had something to do with that fills me with pride.</p><p>And hope.</p><p>Bruce Benson is a Canadian writer and journalist who makes Hendersonville his home. Reach him at bensonusa@ hotmail.com.</p>